


Fallen From God (Fallen From Grace)

by Just_Trying_To_Get_Around_You



Series: Fallen From Grace Series [1]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Bad Parent Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Canon Compliant, Family Dynamic, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Other Character Tags to be Added - Freeform, Sky Gods - Freeform, Twins Wilbur Soot & Technoblade, Wilbur Soot Angst, Wilbur Soot-centric, later chapters will be much longer, love that thats a tag, once we get to the smp anyway, which may take a While
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-16 01:41:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29324121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Just_Trying_To_Get_Around_You/pseuds/Just_Trying_To_Get_Around_You
Summary: Wilbur, seeking adventure, sits alone in his family’s home. He wishes for it like a Disney princess, but never works up the resolve to step out that door.Then, one day, he is dragged from that home while his father and brother are out, and embarks on an adventure unlike anything he ever wanted, for better or for worse.Whatever the case, he will come out changed on the other side.Fic title - “Stars” from Les Miserables
Relationships: Jschlatt & Wilbur Soot, Wilbur Soot & Technoblade, Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit & Phil Watson
Series: Fallen From Grace Series [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2153976
Comments: 38
Kudos: 145





	1. Prologue: I Wish That Something or Someone Could Just Take it All Away

**Author's Note:**

> Working Chapter Title - Wilbur: When Will My Father Come Back From the War
> 
> Ohhhhh my baby, my sweet sweet multichapter baby. I am so excited to write this and all other projects are going on the backburner until I get most of this written. 
> 
> I have a full plan for this fic, and I am so excited to put it on paper you have no idea.
> 
> Tags will be added as I go, as I don’t want to tag things I haven’t written preemptively. 
> 
> This fic is also, like most of my recent fics, dedicated to the Sleuthing Server, I genuinely love you guys so much and you guys have singlehandedly increased my motivation to post my fics on Ao3 <3333333
> 
> Chapter title - “Life” from Starship
> 
> Please enjoy this fic, as long as it takes to come out.

Wilbur doesn’t like the cold.

Unfortunately the winter in the little patch of server the Minecraft family calls home gets incredibly, blisteringly cold. Ice freezes in icicles on the edge of the roof, and no amount of sitting by the fire changes the sheer drop in temperature in the house, but at least it’s better than being outside.

Usually Wilbur likes the winter because it used to mean that he had an excuse to curl up with his father and twin brother under a blanket and sleep with his two favorite people in the world. Winter used to mean getting bundled up in coats and having snowball fights until their father came out and yelled at them for being out too long in the cold. Winter used to mean hot chocolate and warm nights reading stories by the fire.

Now, for Wilbur, winter simply comes with the cold, and the bitter reminder that the past is gone and behind him. He’s barely an adult, only in his early twenties, and he wants to leave but he has nowhere to go.

He’s never gone further than to town and back, never seen more of the world than what was on this measly little server. He wanted to see the world.

But he didn’t want to do it with Phil and Techno.

Well, he did, but they just kept leaving him alone. He was the musical one, the ray of happiness in mischief in their little three. The one that didn’t fit in their survivalist ideals so he got left behind when they travelled for competitions and adventures and jobs. 

So Wilbur convinces himself he doesn’t want it. He tells himself that he’s going to leave on his own terms. Any day now. Any day.

But he wants to stay. He wants to be here and spend time with his family, what little time that ended up being. He wants to be there when his family gets back and mother hen his twin brother and make them dinner and watch them recover and hear their stories.

He just doesn’t know when they’re coming back. He wants to know when they’re coming back, no he  _ needs  _ to know how much longer he’ll be hanging on by his fingers so he can prepare to be pulled up and not let go at the last moment.

Wilbur just wants to see his family again before he leaves.

(He doesn’t know, going to sleep that night, that he will not.)

—

_ “-sure about this one-?” _

_ “-awful hopeless-looking-“ _

_ “-perfect champion-“ _

_ “-chosen-“ _

_ “-entertain us, don’t worry-“ _

_ He opens his eyes to darkness, feeling himself floating in a black space he’s never seen before. Later he will learn this is the space between worlds, but he does not know this now. He simply believes he is having a rather bland dream. _

_ “-fire in his eyes-“ _

_ “-wonderful music-“ _

_ “-potential-“ _

_ “-he’s perfect-“ _

_ He descends into blackness once again. _


	2. Flowers Gasping Under Rubble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wilbur makes a friend, and has some slightly violent tendencies
> 
> Chapter Title - The Mind Electric by Miracle Musical

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: Fear of drowning, mild peril, mild tension, sexual innuendo

Wilbur wakes up lying in the grass.

This would not be strange if not for three factors.

The first, Wilbur recognizes as he sits up, is that he was certain he fell asleep in his bed last night, so being in the grass was very wrong.

The second, is that there shouldn’t be any grass, because it’s the middle of the winter. He looks around, and indeed, there is no snow to be found.

The third, is that there is someone else with him.

The aforementioned third element groans and sits up, and the first thing Wilbur notices is their ram horns. They stand up and look around, having somehow not noticed Wilbur yet.

“Well, this is certainly unfortunate,” they grumble, and Wilbur stands up himself.

“You could call it that,” he replies. The person whirls around.

“Jesus, warn a guy before you just appear behind him!”

Wilbur huffs. “Not my fault you’re a pussy,” is out of his mouth before he can stop it, and the person in front of him frowns before a big grin forms on his face.

“I like a man who bites back. Name’s J. Schlatt, businessman extraordinaire.” He offers a hand for Wilbur to shake.

“Wilbur, musician,” he says, taking the hand.

Schlatt whistles. “Musician, eh? You’ve certainly got the face for it.”

(Schlatt doesn’t ask about his lack of last name, something he is grateful for.)

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothin’, nothin’, forget I said anything.”

They both take a moment to look around.

“Where are we?” Wilbur asks.

“Random default seed, if I had to guess,” Schlatt responds, walking over to a tree and gathering some wood. “That barrier out there keeping us in means someone put us here on purpose. Got anyone with a grudge against you, Wilbur?”

Wilbur blinks. “What does ‘default seed’ mean?”

Schlatt looks over at him, his eyes narrowed. “Do you not know what a world seed is? Like, the core of every world that tells you what it looks like if you know how to read it right?”

“Nope,” Wilbur says.

He looks at him weirdly for a second before he burst out laughing. “Man, have you been livin’ under a rock?!” Schlatt shrieks between guffaws. 

“I’ve never left my original world so I wouldn’t know.”

Schlatt is now looking at him like he’s from another planet. “Why in the name of  _ Prime  _ would you stay in the world you were born in?”

Wilbur bites his tongue and doesn’t know if he should tell Schlatt about being a hybrid, without any of the noticeable changes to his anatomy that came with it. He doesn’t know if he should tell him about the nights he spent when it was just him and Techno, alone in the Nether. He doesn’t know if he should tell him about Phil finding them and taking them home, and to the village in this small world.

He doesn’t even realize that he hasn’t answered Schlatt’s question until the other man huffs and starts crafting tools. Wilbur numbly starts doing it too, unused to roughing it like this.

“Are you a Virgo?” Schlatt asks out of the blue.

This is a question Wilbur is more comfortable answering. “What kind of question is that?”

“Just got that vibe from you, I have a policy of hatin’ all Virgos. You seem alright though, so I’ll refrain from hating you just yet.”

“Thanks,” Wilbur snarks.

He’s good at banter, he’s comfortable with banter. It was something he’d done with Techno enough that it was practically instinct. He could handle conversation with Schlatt if it was this.

Honestly he was so busy convincing himself that he could handle casual conversation that he failed to notice the rising water beneath his feet until it was nearly at his ankles.

“Jesus fuck!” he cries, feeling his socks soaked through with water, and catching Schlatt’s attention. 

“Wil, what’s the matter- FUCK!” Schlatt echoes as he notices the water crawling up his boots. “Let’s get to higher ground!”

They dash up the nearby mountain to a certain level, Wilbur looking down to see the grass of the sunny, idyllic world being consumed hungrily by the water below. 

He has never seen so much water in his life, and it is now making him a bit nauseous. 

“Man, you look like you’ve never seen an ocean before- oh yeah,” he facepalms. “Forgot. You really haven’t. Forget I said anything. Let’s build a house or some shit.”

So they built a house, Wilbur willing to default to Schlatt as an authority on how things worked. He knew the basic stuff like gathering wood and making tools but he’d never gone beyond that. 

(He hopes quietly that Schlatt never tries to fight him. The one basic skill Wilbur was never taught was how to defend himself. It wasn’t that Phil didn’t try, it was simply that Wilbur didn’t want to.

Techno did enough fighting for the both of them, why was it a skill he needed if his brother would always be there to defend him?)

Wilbur helps Schlatt build the house, and when he divides it, he doesn’t argue. Schlatt shows Wilbur how to set his spawn though, something he’s never had to think about.

The water rises around them, enveloping their tiny shack and making Wilbur aware of just how hopeless their situation is.

He curses whatever put them here and swears that something tingling in the air is amused, and then the water rises again.

“I’m going to swim to the surface,” he says to Schlatt through the window between their sides of the house. It’s been a few days since they settled down here, and Wilbur doesn’t particularly want to spend more time in a house getting cabin fever.

Schlatt waves him off.

“Go on then, send me a message if you’re not dead when you get up there.”

Wilbur swims to the surface, holding his breath like he’s read about doing, and he’s so close to the surface-

He inhales water but keeps going, choking on the taste of salt and the cruel pain in his throat from where he filled his lungs with the sea instead of air.

He climbs onto a nearby rock, recognizing it as the top of the mountain, completely submerged. He even notices kelp starting to grow under the water, where the trees still sit, rooted into the earth.

Wilbur pulls his communicator out and sends a short message to Schlatt. 

_ <Wilbur> i’m alive _

_ <Jschlatt> good job virgo _

_ <Wilbur> you should come up _

_ <Wilbur> i’m lonely _

_ <Jschlatt> aw you miss me already? _

_ <Jschlatt> ill pass on the comin up thing btw _

_ <Wilbur> please come _

_ <Jschlatt> im not gonna come! _

_ <Wilbur> if you don’t come i’ll make you _

_ <Jschlatt> howre you gonna make me come _

_ <Wilbur> i’ll come down there and make sure you come _

Wilbur smiles and puts his communicator away as it continues to buzz and a thought enters his head.

If he floods the house, Schlatt has to come up to him, right? He’ll have no choice, and Wilbur won’t be alone anymore.

No, he shouldn’t do that. Instead he builds a small house on the mountaintop and stays there for a few more days before getting claustrophobic again.

The thoughts of going down and breaking through the roof of the house re-appeal to him, and Wilbur plans to go through with it. 

He dives back down, the water now resting comfortably just below his feet. Wilbur takes a deep breath and dives in, swimming fast to reach the bottom.

There’s a moment where he doesn’t think he’ll quite make it and the feeling of salt water infesting his lungs re-enters his mind and he barely manages to reach the threshold of the house before he gasps in breaths of clean, yet stuffy air. 

“Schlatt?” he calls, and the other man pokes his head out from behind the wood separating them.

“Damn, thought you were a zombie!” Schlatt cries, vaulting over the small wooden barrier and neglecting the door right next to it. “It’s good to see ya man!”

Wilbur instantly regrets his plan, but resolves to go through with it anyway. Schlatt will understand, won’t he?

The water’s been rising slower recently, maybe whoever made this world is showing them some small mercy, giving them some land to build on.

They could make it up to the house if they tried.

Wilbur hugs Schlatt, then when he moves back over to the other side, he acts. Standing in the doorway, he subtly hits at the wood with his axe.

Schlatt notices quickly. “What the fuck are you doing?”

He turns to Schlatt and grins. “I told you I’d make you come up.”

Wilbur takes off swimming, hearing Schlatt move behind him. He smiles a bit to himself, now Schlatt has to come and keep him company. He won’t be alone again.

Wilbur breaks the surface before Schlatt does, moving over to his house, the water reaching his ankles again. 

Schlatt follows quickly after him, scowling.

“What the fuck was that, Wilbur?” he asks.

Wilbur shrugs. “I wanted you to come up here.”

“If you really wanted me up here I would’ve come up on my own!”

_ “If you want to spend more time with us maybe you should learn to hold a sword!” _

Wilbur scoffs. “Are you saying I didn’t want you up here to begin with?”

Schlatt sighs. “I thought you were joking, man! You only brought it up once!”

“I brought it up because I meant it, Schlatt. I don’t say things I don’t mean.” 

  
( _ Even if I‘m lying,  _ he doesn’t say, or mean yet.)

“I don’t know you! I don’t know how you work!”

“I think you know me better already than anyone else.”

They don’t speak for the rest of the day.

Or night.

When morning comes, Schlatt approaches Wilbur, bleary-eyed, but with a plan.

“If we try hard enough, we can force our way through the barrier. It’s our only shot to get out of this mess before we drown.”

Wilbur nods along, and soon finds himself on one of the only points left, standing next to Schlatt, who swallows and grabs Wilbur’s hand.

“Let’s go,” Wilbur says, already hoping they can create something else, make some new adventure like in the stories, but he pushes those hopes down for later. Later.

They push against the force of the barrier, and Wilbur screams as it burns his hands, but they keeping pushing and-

-vanish, into the air. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! 
> 
> I will get the next chapter out as soon as it’s done, which may be in *checks watch* a month or so! In the meanwhile, I’m also working on a oneshot or two, so keep an eye out for those!
> 
> If I decide to post them anyway...


	3. Watch As the Fire Consumes You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Second verse, same as the first.
> 
> Or maybe not.
> 
> Chapter Title: I'll Let It Burn by Kanaya

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Temporary character death, lava, fire, description of burning to death, toxic (platonic) relationships
> 
> Hehe lava rising go brrrrr

Wilbur groans as he sits up again, rubbing his head.

Schlatt gets up from where he was lying next to Wilbur, and surveys the area again. “Huh, this one’s different,” he says, squinting at the sudden brightness of the sun in the sky.

“Really? I don’t see a change,” Wilbur snarks, standing up himself and looking around. The world is definitely different, different hills, different mountains, but the one thing that has stayed consistent is the giant barrier stretching up to the sky.

“It’s probably gonna be the same thing again, we should probably build a house like last time-“

As he’s talking, Wilbur sees something bubbling and popping from afar. Squinting, he sees the telltale orange of lava in the distance, and cold drips down his spine.

“Schlatt?” he interrupts. “I think something’s different about this one!”

“What, what do you see, Virgo?” Schlatt came over to stand next to him, and seemed to spot what he had. “Shit! Can’t we catch a damn break?”

“Guess not.”

Wilbur gathers a lot of wood, and so does Schlatt. They work in relative silence for a bit, rushing to the caves to get a bit of stone before they become completely inaccessible.

Every time he goes down into the cave, he’s struck by the paranoia, the fear that the next block he mined would release the lava and it would flow into him and cause a brutal, fiery death.

Schlatt seems to be having similar problems, and once Wilbur starts building his tower, he scrabbles up the ladder, huffing as if he had run all the way from somewhere, which is reasonable, considering that the lava is licking at the heels of the tower already, thankfully not lighting the wood on fire just yet.

“Needed iron,” Schlatt manages through pants. “Got some for tools, if we need it.”

“Why would we need tools?” Wilbur scoffs. “We’re just building up, and occasionally eating.”

“Just in case,” Schlatt replies.

They busy themselves with working on the structure, with Schlatt a bit distant but not worryingly so.

They’re stuck together after all, there’s nobody else to talk to.

Wilbur looks down at his hands.

There’s a spider’s web of scarring on his hands, branching out from the center of his palms. It’s enough to dissuade Wilbur from pushing on the barrier in this world, fearing that they would simply end up in a newer, more violent and tumultuous world as punishment by whoever had orchestrated this.

The idea of escaping through the barrier is still tantalizing, but Wilbur is less willing to try it again after the pain of the first attempt.

Besides, realistically, where would they go? Neither of them knew these worlds, and Wilbur would be dead weight, not knowing anything about how most things worked in this world. Schlatt knew a lot, but even he didn’t know everything, like a way to get them off this world.

They’d be stuck here, probably dying over and over until whoever made this place got bored and deleted the world.

He hopes that doesn’t happen any time soon.

His musings by the furnace are interrupted by Schlatt, above him and calling down to him.

“Y’know Wilbur I’ve been thinkin’,” he says, and Wilbur can’t help but feel a jolt of fear. “I can get on just fine on my own, I don’t need you here.”

Wilbur barely manages to move out of the way, as Schlatt tips a bucket of lava over the edge of the upper floor, nearly getting burned by it. His heart races as he stares upward. “Hey,” he says, ready to beg this man for his life and try not to think about the heat and pain and the feeling of burning that he thought he’d scrubbed out of his bones years ago. “Look, I’ll get off the platform, and we can be on two ends of the world, okay?” As if to emphasize his point, he starts building a platform outward to get away from any more falling lava.

“No no no, that’s not how this works.”

Wilbur looks up to see Schlatt building out to meet him, dumping another bucket down and making the wood sizzle. Wilbur can’t help but jump a little at the noise.

_ He had thought he was over this. _

He starts to build away faster, more erratically, and there’s a marked relief in the realization that Schlatt isn’t following anymore, having gone back to what was now his tower.

Let it burn, then, when the lava inevitably sets it alight.

Wilbur will build on the nearby mountaintop, hoping that he can ignore the tower.

And he does.

For a day.

Eventually he pokes his head around the small wall he had built and sees that Schlatt is making the tower bigger, and appears to be using water (he must have gathered at some point before all of it got swallowed up) to build the tower more solidly by mixing it with the lava to make cobblestone. 

It’s clever, he has to admit.

He pulls out his communicator and makes a decision.

_ <Wilbur> i’m coming over to you _

_ <Wilbur> i just want to talk _

He pockets the device, not bothering to read the return messages he’s sure he’ll receive. Instead, he starts making his way back over to the cobblestone monstrosity that was his tower.

He can see Schlatt shuffling around toward the top, and when he sees Wilbur coming, he shuffles faster, digging through his things to find, presumably, things to stop him with.

Maybe even to kill him with.

While it strikes him with anxiety, there’s a glimmer of excitement in his mind as well. He doesn’t know what will happen here, and it’s like something he’d read about in a book. He grins a bit as he climbs the cobblestone fortifications, building up a small wooden buffer against the lava poured down to meet him.

“You know that wood’s gonna burn right?”

“A little burning didn’t stop you, did it?”

He feels different all of a sudden, his fears and anxieties overwhelmed by the sheer onslaught of  _ thrill  _ he was experiencing. He doesn’t know what he will do when he gets to the top but he’s riding the high of getting there and the real peril of this situation.

He continues to quash his fears under his boots and pretend they don’t exist when he keeps moving up, scaling the wall and trying to reach Schlatt’s perch. 

Wilbur’s nearly there when he grips the edge and Schlatt’s own boot comes down on his hand.

So close.

He’s so close to the top.

He doesn’t even know why he wants to get up there anymore. To prove something? To annoy Schlatt? To feel the burn of making a choice in his soul and knowing that he was doing something without his family standing behind him, watching him.

It doesn’t matter now, not really.

What matters is that Schlatt is standing over him with what Wilbur could call an uncharacteristic gleam in his eye, but he doesn’t know Schlatt well enough for that. He knows what’s about to happen as his fingers scream in pain and he only hopes that his death will not be in vain.

And with a last look at Schlatt’s gleaming ivory smile, he falls back into the lava, bubbling, reaching up to embrace him.

—

_ Wilbur died for the first time when he was 10. _

_ He and Techno had been with Phil for nearly a year by that point, and Wilbur had climbed a tree outside their house, looking around the large expanse of a world they lived on. Phil had called out to him to get down, flying up after him, but seeing Phil at his level for the first time scared him, and he fell. _

_ It hurt, but only for a few moments. He could hear the distant sound of his brother screaming, of his father crying, before the world went dark. _

_ Then it went red. _

**_You died._ **

**_Respawn?_ **

_ Wilbur hesitantly hit the respawn button and the world faded out again and- _

_ -he jolts up on his bed and runs back out to the yard, seeing his father and brother standing there, arguing. _

_ “Dad?” he says, and it’s the first time he calls Phil that. “What happened?” _

—

The lava is a familiar burn.

As it eats his skin alive he thinks this must be like a nightmare come to life, and he’s much too calm for the pain he’s in, ripping screams from his throat he didn’t even notice were leaving.

On the outside he’s thrashing, screaming, burning alive in the unforgiving lava, but on the inside his mind has already accepted his inevitable demise.

And he dies.

His world goes dark.

And then-

Floating.

He’s floating.

He had expected the red and the respawn prompt button, but instead he hangs in the air above the world he just died in. 

Wilbur stares down at Schlatt and realizes along the way that he can’t even see his own body.

Schlatt is attempting to survive below as the lava rises up to even the highest point on his cobble tower.

Deciding he doesn’t want to watch Schlatt win this little life-or-death game, Wilbur’s eyes wander, and they catch on another figure floating through the air, with their hands resting on what looks like a larger version of a communicator. Each time they swept their fingers a certain way, the lava would rise.

There was some kind of visor or mask over their face. He finds this out when he floats over and their head snaps to him, mouth set in a thin line, before smirking slightly.

“ _ Hello, champion. _ ” they say, and Wilbur doesn’t have a voice to reply with. “ _ You have gained our favor. A few challenges more, and we will make a decision of what to do with you.” _

He doesn’t know what  _ that  _ cryptic bullshit is supposed to mean, but something about this...humanoid entity’s aura dissuades him from making his displeasure known.

Wilbur turns back to the scene below, feeling detached from it and Schlatt, who builds his small hovel on the only space remaining.

“Hey, dickhead!” Schlatt shouts to what he believes to be their puppetmaster. “They call me Ladderman! You wanna know why?”

Floating closer, Wilbur could see that Schlatt had his arms locked around a ladder in his small cobblestone box, and as the lava came in, it didn’t quite reach the ladder, causing Schlatt to crackle triumphantly.

“Yes! I fucking did it! Oh Wilbur, if only you could be seeing my brilliance.”

_ I would be, _ he wants to say,  _ if you had let me. _

He burns with something that can’t be a lingering feeling from the lava, something growing stronger and harder inside him.

And then both of them disappear once again, and the god they call JoshA20 smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! This one didn't take me very long! I've been waiting to write this chapter since I started this fic, as well as a few of the later ones coming up, so be prepared for those.
> 
> If you're waiting for SMP content that should start around *peeks at outline* Chapter 9. Phil and Techno will make actual appearances in Chapter 7, and raccoon boy shows up in Chapter 8. What will happen in the meantime? ;)
> 
> Hope you enjoyed, and comments and kudos fuel me so if you could do that it would really be pogchamp


	4. I Faced It All and I Stood Tall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wilbur and Schlatt reconnect
> 
> Wilbur has an interesting yet very one-sided conversation
> 
> Chapter Title: My Way - Chase Holfelder (this cover specifically)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Scarring, dubious moral compasses, mentioned major character death, description of vast and unfathomable environments (in the last section)

They appear in a flatter looking world this time.

Wilbur can still feel the phantom burns on his skin, and he knows that something happened after he died, the memories are just fuzzy, maybe a side effect of the world jump? He couldn’t quite tell.

Schlatt is quiet next to him. 

They sit in relative silence for a few moments.

“We should really figure out what this one’s gonna throw at us,” Schlatt mumbles. 

“Yup,” Wilbur replies.

Wilbur looks down at his arms and stares at the burn scars he can see, poking out from underneath his innocent looking sweater. They’re red, raw, as if they weren’t given time to heal on purpose so that they could form permanent marks on his body. 

That’s not even all.

There’s a fucking boot imprint on his right hand.

It is now, staring at the darkened print of the underside of Schlatt’s boot, that Wilbur realizes that neither of them would come out of this a better person. They are both jagged in their words and tendencies, and this will remain constant. 

It is why Wilbur knocked out the roof of Schlatt’s house.

It is why Schlatt shoved him down into lava.

There is no peace between them, and if there were, they would have to have been different people from the beginning.

They are not what you’d consider good people, Schlatt with his selfishness, and Wilbur with his impulsivity and lies. They are who they are, and they reject each other like magnets, while still trying to get close. They waltz with knives, and nobody can tell who of them is winning.

Wilbur stands up and starts investigating the area. The setup doesn’t lend itself very well to anything rising, but that doesn’t mean it still can’t happen. There are a few trees around, and Wilbur starts to gather wood from them while Schlatt lies around and does nothing.

This is already a rhythm. They work together until they don’t anymore. It’s a game, a dance, a battle. Who’s the first to crack and make a decision that would cost them trust under any other circumstances. Wilbur has not trusted Schlatt since the moment he met him, but that does not change that they are stuck together.

Wilbur has a house set up when he hears Schlatt scream, followed by the sound of an explosion.

_ Explosion, explosion, get safe, behind a wall, they can’t touch you- _

Wilbur shakes his head and looks out the windows carved into the door. There aren’t Ghasts in the overworld. He’s fine.

Schlatt, however, is not. There’s a large hole in the ground next to him, and he’s quickly dashing over to the house Wilbur made.

“Think I figured this one out, Virgo,” he says. “Fallin’ explosives.”

“Well damn,” Wilbur replies, because it’s all the response he has to that.

Then the wall is blown open and he jumps back.

Schlatt watches his reaction, and Wilbur notices the other’s own flinch. 

“We should probably patch that,” Schlatt says, and they’re back to being a ‘we’.

Wilbur grabs some of his extra wood and patches up the hole the best he can so that any mobs outside can’t get in, passive or no. He really doesn’t want to learn exactly how hard zombies hit today.

Not that nightfall is ever going to come.

They stay in the house for a while, Schlatt fiddling around with something in his pockets and using the table to craft something.

Another explosion rocks the house, blowing another sizable hole into the side.

Wilbur goes with it.

He’s quick to slam on the Respawn button the moment it appears, and he runs back to the house, avoiding the explosives falling all around him.

Schlatt stares at him with wide eyes. “I guess this one’s got respawn active.”

Wilbur doesn’t have to ask what that means.

Instead, they move on, Wilbur collecting the items he dropped and repatching the wall destroyed by the explosion. 

Schlatt tries to get his attention shortly after, and when he does, he shows Wilbur two stone swords with a smirk. 

“I’m Bladez!” he crows, and his confidence is infectious. Wilbur laughs along and calls him Bladez, because he won’t respond to his name.

The house, mercifully, doesn’t get hit for a few more hours. They laugh and joke like nothing’s wrong, and Wilbur starts to work on a song about their experiences, which Schlatt contributes to with about the amount of tact to be expected from him.

Either way, they’re laughing like this when the entire house becomes a giant crater and they both die.

They quickly respawn and rush over to the crater, salvaging anything they could. Schlatt got his swords back, and Wilbur got most of his wood, but they both had abruptly sobered up.

“Good things come in threes don’t they?” Schlatt asks out of nowhere, and Wilbur knows where he’s going before it comes. He’s been getting a similar feeling.

“If this is the last one I want to say goodbye,” Wilbur says.

Schlatt huffs. “Don’t say goodbye.”

“Why?”

“It’s kinda stupid, but my mom always told me never to say goodbye. If you don’t say goodbye, you’re never really gone, she’d always tell me, you just aren’t there right now.”

“Huh.” Wilbur looks over at his companion. “Settle for a ‘see you later’ then?”

Schlatt huffed a laugh. “See you later Virgo.”

“See you later Bladez.”

Then the world around them vanishes.

—

Wilbur awakens in another void. He blinks his eyes open and is surrounded by darkness, pure and calming in its infinity. He opens his mouth but no sound comes out, and he drifts in the silence and warmth of the emptiness for what could be a moment or an eternity.

Eventually the endless expanse around him begins to move and he is faced with the infinite gaze of the universe, staring into eyes just as burning and deep as his own, but somehow more. 

_ Hello, little one,  _ the Universe says, and thinks, and echoes over the space of billions of lightyears around them.

Wilbur scrambles a bit, the words that came to him before failing once again as he stares into the eyes of the Universe, the thing that everything makes up, and the thing that makes up everything. 

The Universe does something like a chuckle, the expanse of space rippling like waves and Wilbur hears the crash of them in his ears, filled with amusement and kindness. Pure, overwhelming kindness.

_ There’s no need to worry, little one, you are safe here, for the time being,  _ the Universe rumbles and there’s a pressure on his chin, like a hand is propping his head up to look at his face.  _ You have such a strong heart, dear. Keep your fire burning. _

Thoughts race through Wilbur’s mind, but the panic quickly subsides when another pressure like a hand runs a hand through his hair, and he melts at the touch, not remembering the last time someone touched him affectionately.

_ I cannot control your fate after you leave this place,  _ the Universe says, sounding mournful.  _ But you must always keep moving, my dear. Keep surviving, keep moving forward. Your future is what you shape it to be. _

_ Now go, dear child, and raze the world with your song. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be fun
> 
> Hope you’re enjoying! Maybe drop a kudos or a comment? I really appreciate then!


	5. NOT A CHAPTER BUT A SERVER :D

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not a chapter, BUT a link to the shiny new Discord server for this fic

Hey!

Do you like DISCORD?

Well now there’s a Discord server for this fic! And for the readers of it!

[Join it!](https://discord.gg/dvHBrtAj)

LOOK

IT’S THERE

WOW

JOIN IT? MAYBE?   
  


Then we can talk about the fic!! And other things!! 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Click the link :D

**Author's Note:**

> Honey, you’ve got a big storm comin’
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr @kikiofthevast


End file.
